_Fag_ = "a horse for easy riding" or some such?

[Joel S. Berson]

Wilson:

Fag, n.1, sense 2.a.:  "In English public
schools, a junior who performs certain duties for a senior."

A partying senior might require two bottles of port.

Joel

At 2/19/2011 07:50 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>From:
>
>THE SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS FOR 1805
>
>VOL. IX
>
>LONDON:
>...
>1806
>
>p.352
>
>A HORSE FOR AFTER DINNER
>
>AN EPIGRAM
>
>SAYS Sir Toby---" My friend, can you get me a nag
>That will ride very quiet---and serve as a _fag_?"--- [Emphasis supplied]
>" Yes, I've one that will suit you ; he's steady and mild,
>And so safe in his paces, he'd carry a child."---
>" A child !" says Sir Toby, " that is not the sort ;
>Do you think he can carry _two bottles of port?"_ [Emphasis original]
>
>
>http://goo.gl/ymowq
>
>I ran across this while idly researching "a knock-down argument," a
>phrase that I'd never heard heard before 1972 at MIT, where it is/was?
>endemic in the linguistics dept. Then, I discovered that Lewis Carroll
>had used this turn of phrase. Quelle surprise! (Yes, it appears in
>_Alice_, but, astoundingly, I'd forgotten about that.) IAC, I can now
>date the phrase to 1806.
>
>I'm just messing around for personal enjoyment. Nevertheless, if
>anyone should have the earliest cite at the tip of his fingers and be
>willing to spare me the effort of finding it for myself ... :-)
>
>--
>-Wilson
>-----
>
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"­­a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-Mark Twain
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org